Generally, escalators are installed on plural stories of buildings in such a way that the escalator are connected to each other in the zigzag fashion, unlike elevators which travels between a riding story and a desired story. Accordingly, the escalators are predominantly used in department stores in which various products are sold, subways, airports, terminals and the like, to which people flock, rather than business buildings. Recently, moving walkways, which are horizontal traveling type of escalators, are used even in the same story, in order to reduce traffic.
Such an escalator is usually designed to travel only in one direction. As shown in FIG. 1, the escalator 10 includes a pair of skirt bases 11, which are spaced from each other with a spacing of about 80 cm–120 cm therebetween, and a step belt consisting of a plurality of steps 12, which travel continuously while maintaining the upper surfaces in the horizontal position and on which passengers mount.
Each of the pair of skirt bases 11 is provided thereon with a lateral balustrade 13 made of glass or metal. The lateral balustrade 13 is provided thereon with a handrail 14, which travels in the same direction and at the same speed as those of the step belt 12, and serves as a handgrip for passengers.
The handrails 14, which serve as handgrip, are intended to prevent passengers from falling down or slipping. To prevent slippage by the passengers, the handrails 14 are commonly made of a rubber material.
Since the handrails 14 come into contact with hands of a multitude of people, if sanitary maintenance of the handrails 14 is not assured, various viruses, bacteria and the like harmful to humans are apt to propagate on the handrails 14. Therefore, the handrails 14 must be always maintained in the clean condition. Up to now, sanitary maintenance of the handrails 14 has been fulfilled by frequently mopping and cleaning surfaces of the handrails 14 with neutral detergent or antiseptic solution.
However, since the conventional handrails of escalators must be frequently cleaned manually, there is a problem in that the maintenance of the handrail requires very high costs. In addition, since the cleaning work cannot positively sterilize and disinfect the handrails by a simple wiping operation, the passengers are exposed to hazard such as disease and bacterial infection due to viruses and bacteria existing on the handrails.
Since escalators are used to transport a multitude of people, it is possible to maximize the advertising effectiveness for products and corporations by providing advertising copies to the escalators. However, heretofore, there are only triangular guide plates positioned at intersections of crossed escalators to prevent passengers' heads from being caught in the intersections, and small advertising boards erected at transferring area between successive escalators, as the advertising copies.
By way of an example, Korean Utility Model Registration No. 20-0298362 discloses an advertising object “P” consisting of a printed layer attached on handrails 14 of an escalator, and a film cover attached to the printed layer, as shown in FIG. 2. However, since the advertising object “P” is attached to the handrails 14 rotating around balustrades of the escalator, the advertising object “P” comes into contact with a multitude of passengers' hands, leading to maculae and contaminant on the advertising object and color fading of the advertising object. For this reason, it is difficult to attract people's attention for the advertising object.
When getting on the escalator 10, a passenger first grips handrails 14 in the entry zone of the escalator and then treads on a step 12. At this point, because the elderly aged or weaker man or children have slow reflexes, his/her arms are pulled forward by the handrails 14 before treading on the steps 12, thereby causing the passenger to be fall down or to be injured.
In addition of the above problems, since the escalators are used by a multitude of people, dust and various bacteria exist in the entry zone of the escalator, reading to unsanitary equipment. However, although the fact that the entry zone of the escalator is unsanitary has been recognized, a specific solution to overcome the problem cannot be achieved.